Asian Games 2018: Indian women’s handball team suffer opening game defeat against Kazakhstan

The Indian women’s handball team began its Asian dreams with a 19-36 defeat to Kazakhstan in the preliminary round match of the Asian Games in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Rimpi with eight goals from just nine shots was the highest scorer for India while Maninder Kaur with three goals was the next best goal-scorer. Nidhi Sharma and Ritu also netted two goals each.

India put up a brave fight against Kazakhstan but the gulf in class was evident as the opposition got as many as 54 shots, while India managed just 36. But despite the big difference India rallied hard in the first half and trailed 13-19 behind.

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Their resistance was, however, broken loose in the second period with Kazakhstan completely outplaying them and scoring 6-17 in the opening group encounter.

Dana Abilda scored eight goals while Olga Tankita scored another six for Kazakhstan to lead her side to victory.

India next take on Korea in their second group match on August 16.

Meanwhile, the men’s handball team had faced the same fate a day earlier losing 28-38 to Chinese Taipei at the Popki Indoor Stadium on Monday.

Ranked 12^th in the world, the men’s team found it difficult to enter the Asian Games with the policy allowing only teams ranked 8^th or higher from Asia. But the withdrawal of Australia, Uzbekistan, China, Oman, and UAE eventually placed India seventh among the teams participating from Asia.

But it was only after the Allahabad High Court had intervened and conveyed the message to the IPA was they allowed.

They have been clubbed with Chinese Taipei and Iraq in Group D. the 13 team competition has four different groups.

The Asian Games are set to begin on August 18 but comp Handball and football kick-started on Monday.